The Angel God Sent Before Israel After They Had Sinned

"Behold, I send an angel before you" (Exodus 23:20). The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses: The nations of the world betrayed Me, and I gave them ministering princes to guard them. You too have betrayed Me; behold, I am giving you an angel to guard you. When you were worthy and accepted the Torah, I Myself went before you; but now that you have become liable, behold, I send an angel before you. Another interpretation: The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses: I send him before you, and not before them. Moses said: If You send him before me, I do not want it. [See the difference between the first generations and the later ones:] yet Joshua saw the angel and fell on his face. What did the angel say to him? "Are you for us or for our adversaries?" When Joshua said this to him, the angel began to cry out from beneath the soles of his feet, as it is said, "And he said, No, but I am the captain of the host of the LORD; now I have come" (Joshua 5:14). Behold, twice I have come to give Israel their inheritance: I am the one who came in the days of Moses your teacher, and he repelled me, "and now I have come," "and Joshua fell" — he saw him and fell on his face, but Moses saw him and repelled him. The Holy One, blessed be He, said: "Behold, I send an angel before you" — to everyone who keeps the Torah as you do.